One Nation

I find for two senior citizens, at least me who is over 65 and by international definition, I am a senior, we had a very busy weekend. First, we went to the Horticultural Society's Flower Show then later that afternoon headed into the city for the Bocas Lit Fest and enjoyed every minute of it. During the week we attended various 'Bocas' functions and went back to NALIS over the weekend. For those of you who missed it this time look out for it next year it really is a first class event. Next on the calendar would be the Film Festival. The Rock has talent and creativity oozing from every pore. You should be asking the question why are we not concentrating on our people instead of hoping and praying that the price of oil and gas rebounds? Driving into the city this morning I could not help but remark how clean the place was. Down Frederick St across Queen ( Penny Commissiong) up Abercromby, all spotless. Yes, there were a couple homeless persons who, if dealt with, would h...

Today was 'retired Friday'. I stayed home for most of the day heading out only to forage for pumpkin, tonic water and 'papers'. So, my interaction with the populace was really very limited and therefore I cannot give any great life experiences on this blog. What I did, however, was to tune into the Parliament channel and view the goings on at the Honorable House. Today of interest was the no-confidence vote on the Minister of Works and Transport. It was Private Members Day so the debate stopped early with only five Members speaking. The current Administration has totally screwed up the ferry service and that is the end of that. Between the Minister, who actually had to defend himself, his Prime Minister was nowhere present to witness his own Minister being roasted, confusing the entire issue and his sole defendant the very English, rasta who absolutely hates the Opposition in a real way, things did not go too well for the Minister. Then came the Opposition who real...

Within recent times we have had two major or even three major blunders in our relations with foreign countries.  The first being the now infamous Dominica embarrassment with the vote on the waiver of OAS membership fees for the hurricane devastated island. As we all know Trinidad and Tobago, a Caricom sister, was the only nation out of 35 to vote in the negative. That happened many weeks ago and we still do not know why? The PMOTT, in his usual flippant manner, has asked that the issue is investigated. What could possibly be taking so long to find out who was at fault? I guess that is the end of that! The second was the PMOTT during meetings being held with other Commonwealth leaders at the CHOGM, in London, asking certain countries to stop issuing 'travel advisories' for their citizens wishing to visit the Rock. The reason he gives is that it is affecting our economy in a negative way even though we are experiencing the highest crime rate ever. Instead of dealing with the...

Spoke with the family today living in the cold north and was told that even though the temperature was 03.C they were still heading out for a long walk because the sun was shining. I can so appreciate people adapting to their surroundings, it is what it is. So often you hear people saying 'I cyar live there because.....'. It is your home, this is where your family lives and like everywhere else there will be mosquitos or some other flying nuisance, that is if you are not living in the Antartic, but then there is penguin poop. Went to the 48th Anniversary of the State of Emergency in 1970 at an NJAC held forum last night. It is good that the organization continues to commemorate the occasion. Last night was actually organized by the daughter of one of the persons heavily involved in the modern day revolution. It is so sad that government after government refuse to acknowledge that 1970 actually happened. Just like the 1937 Butler Riots. My father told me that if it was...

'Three Dog Night' has to be one of the best rock bands from the late sixties into the mid-seventies. Great music for both partying, easy listening and the dreaded tabanca ('One' and 'Pieces of April'). We got married in 1977 so that was the end of the tabanca years. I still use music to remember where I was or what was I doing at that time. Like under the Ford Zephyr fixing something and my father comes out saying 'listen to this man singing stupidness', it was Shadow singing 'Baseman'. Not so much these days as one can easily have a complete video recording of everything one does. The real years in one's life is between 16-25, after that, it is a different experience, which is all great and I have zero regrets about anything, but your first car, job, serious relationship, somehow sticks there, hence the music memories. Can you imagine nothing much happened on the rock today? Usual murders, we are now clocking 161 for the year, with only ...

Interacting with people is something I thoroughly enjoy and today was no disappointment. I am doing my afternoon constitutional and as I reach my turning point I see a pickup parked under the Samann tree and there is a guy standing next to it. 'I just want to thank you for what you did for my son' was the remark as I passed. I turn around and approach the guy, a total stranger, who informs me that his son was the beneficiary of a grant my company had given to UWI for a student in Electrical Engineering some years ago. His son has since graduated and is now a Sub-sea Engineer with one of the oil majors. In life you never know who you are going to meet and how it will affect your life. Happenings like this always put me in a feel good mood about the people on the Rock. And speaking of feel good our PMOTT is in sunny London attending the CHOGM. News coming out of the visit has me a bit perplexed. First the members of the PMOTT's team, we have the Junior Minister in the M...

Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and a British mathematician named Charles Babbage are all responsible for how we communicate today. Who is that Babbage guy? Unheard of in modern history but as important to the wild world of the digital age as any of the other crazies. Good thing he stayed with the 'B' and did not move onto the 'C'. Without a computer and all the info one can access at a click we would be hard-pressed to communicate with each other. Who remembers 'Air Mail' letters rather than by 'Sea Mail'? I must admit its still quite a thrill to open your mailbox and pull envelopes out, but only to find bills and more bills, bank statements and dumb flyers. My life partner received a number of glossy Financial Reports, posted from Canada, the other day and we looked at each other, why? What a waste, from a Canadian company! Anyways in case, you were not in tune with what exactly happened in our myopic world in the past, today in history Jack...

We were rocking and rolling this week on the Rock. Out of the blue, we had the PMOTT send a communique to her Excellency identifying changes to his Cabinet. I must say whereas I always likened our PMOTT to the POTUS, he showed that he was very different because he never threatened beforehand to fire or shift any of his Cabinet Ministers. The POTUS, however, would have spent the week tweeting informing the world of the impending doom. So back to the Rock, we had three Ministers shifted, including the PMOTT ( he still retains the PMOTT position) one new appointment,  two demotions, then within a 24hr period, one firing. All of this days after the PMOTT confirmed his full support for his Cabinet Ministers claiming he had full confidence in all of them. People were still calling for the head of the Minister of National Security because of a court matter in a New York jurisdiction that somehow ended up with the case matter being sealed with a gag order placed on both partie...

One of the good things happening on the Rock is the fact that we are not really having a dry season. In the quiet valley of Moka, it continues to rain. The lawn is green, the surrounding hills are lush and zero signs of the dreaded bushfires. There have been wisps of smoke every now and again in areas that have already been butchered but all in all, a very wet dry season. This is by no means the first time that this has happened we have experienced this phenomenon many times before. Many of us would remember January and February being the cane burning months, creating a major environmental problem. The cane has gone but we still have a lot of work to do with the random burning of the hills. Education is a hell of a thing, yes! All of a sudden the area has been subject to cleaning crews working in the area. The 'bush truck' on a very regular schedule, CEPEP, and of course the very regular 3-day garbage pickup. Our previous garbage truck was an old creaky, banging, air ...

I am sitting here, Friday evening thinking about what music do I want to listen to. Being a child of the sixties I figured nice quiet cool evening so how about some good old hippie music. I put on Crosby Stills Nash and Young , I think this is the only album they made together, Deja Vue . Strangely enough, this is exactly where I am and what I am experiencing. My mood takes me back to 1986 where as a 34-year-old, nine years married, 3 children, recently built our house, looking forward to whatever the world had in store for us. Early in that year my life partner and I had this very serious conversation. With the impending election by year-end, what would we do if the PNM won? This was a scary time for us, we did not have the where with all to pack bags and head out to anywhere? With me having a limited formal education where would we go, who would accept us?  The NAR was formed and the decision made. We would work very hard to help our NAR candidate Anthony Smart wi...

Its Easter weekend and we here on the Rock are having a full four (4) public holiday weekend. This weekend we celebrate both Easter and Shouter Baptiste Day so its holidays galore. Looking at the American news channels this morning I was surprised that people were wishing each other Happy Easter. I thought all mention of anything religious had been removed from the public space and we now were greeted with 'Happy Holidays'. Anyway, a very Happy Easter to all and a very happy Shouter Baptist Day to all! Many years ago, like fifty (50) years, my Easter holidays were spent camping down the islands, in Scotland Bay to be exact, with a bunch of other friends. We had a rowboat and that was our sole means of transport for nearly two weeks. We would load our provisions at then Staubles Bay and row around Cannings Pt into the First Boca and ended at Scotland Bay. There were no permanent camping sites so we would have to make one. There is something about being on...